Symposium Speaker Biographies

Margit Aramburu

Ms. Aramburu served as the first executive director for the Delta Protection Commission from 1993 through July 2005.  She worked for 13 years in various positions for the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission and has worked as a planning consultant. She also served as the public member of the Bay Area Air Quality Management Board’s Appeals Board and as a member of the Design Review Board for the Town of Tiburon.  She is a graduate of the environmental planning program masters in UC Berkeley’s landscape architecture department.
 

Ronald Baldwin

Mr. Baldwin is Director of Emergency Operations for San Joaquin County where he is responsible for coordinating response to natural and man-made disasters.   His experience includes the El Nino floods of 1982-83 and 1997-98, the 1986 and 1997 floods, and the 2004 Jones Tract flood.  He has also been involved in regional planning efforts to improve levee flood fight response and evacuation planning in the Delta and surrounding urban areas.  He has a MPA from California State University, Stanislaus.
 

Joseph Bodovitz

Mr. Bodovitz was the first executive director of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the first executive director of the California Coastal Commission, and later executive director of the California Public Utilities Commission.  Now retired, he was also president of the California Environmental Trust.
 

Peter Bosselmann

Mr. Bosselmann is Chair of the Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Department and Professor of Urban Design within the College of Environmental Design. He is a practicing professional with completed work in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Toronto, and Tokyo. He has taught at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, at the University of Tokyo, Sidney Institute of Technology and the New University of Lisbon. He is also Director of the Environmental Simulation Laboratory, a facility set up by the National Science Foundation with the mandate to aid public communication of large scale planning and design proposals. The simulation work at Berkeley has led to the establishment of two sister laboratories in New York City and in Tokyo.
 

Jennifer Brooke

Ms. Brooke is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley. She holds a MLA from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, and her research focuses on the role of ‘site’ in the design process. She is currently exploring perceptions of land, the construction of ground, the characterization of land as a site, the role this information plays in the design process, and the means with which these ideas are visually communicated.
 

John Cain

Mr. Cain is director of the restoration ecology program at the Natural Heritage Institute, focusing on restoration of the San Joaquin River and the Delta.  He initiated and obtained funding for the 1,200- acre Dutch Slough tidal marsh restoration project on property that was previously slated for development of 4,500 residential units. Mr. Cain holds a MLA from our very own UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design.
 

Marci Coglianese

Ms. Coglianese is a former mayor and councilmember of the City of Rio Vista (1997-2004) and a past board member of the Delta Protection Commission (1999-2004) and the Solano Land Trust (1992-2000). She represented the League of California Cities on the state Floodplain Management Task Force and on the public advisory committee to the update of the California Water Plan. She is currently co-chair of the Delta Levees and Habitat Subcommittee within the Bay Delta Public Advisory Committee (BDPAC) and is helping to develop a state-mandated Delta Risk Management Strategy (DRMS). She holds a law degree from UC Davis and has practiced municipal and environmental law for 20 years.
 

Joseph T. Edmiston

Mr. Edmiston is Executive Director of the Santa Monica Conservancy and the Executive Officer of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority. During his tenure the Conservancy has preserved thousands of acres for parks and open space, including project that uniquely serve urban communities. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and the recipient of the La Gasse Medal from the American Society of Landscape Architects. In addition, Mr. Edmiston gives lectures in environmental planning, park development, and urban land use at UC Berkeley, USC, Cal Poly Pomona, and UCLA.
 

Phyllis Faber

Ms. Faber is a wetland biologist and Series Editor for the University of California Press. She served on the California Coastal Commission for eight years and was a co-founder of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust in 1980. She currently serves on the MALT and the Point Reyes National Seashore Advisory Boards.
 

Dan Farber

Mr. Farber is Director of and a Professor in the Environmental Law Program at the UC Berkeley Boalt School of Law. He received his J.D. from the University of illinois, and clerked for Judge Philip W. Tone of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and for Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court. He then practiced law with Sidley & Austin before joining the faculty of the University of Illinois Law School. Mr. Farber has also taught at the University of Minnesota, Stanford, Harvard, and University of Chicago Law Schools, and is the author of three books, including “Desperately Seeking Certainty” (2002), and “Eco-Pragmatism: Making Sensible Environmental Decisions in an Uncertain World” (1999).
 

Harrison Fraker

Mr. Fraker is Dean of the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley. He is also Principal of Harrison Fraker Architect, Inc., and Founding Partner of the Princeton Energy Group. Honored with a Distinguished Service Medal by CALA, at the University of Minnesota, 1996 and an AIA Fellowship, 1991, Fraker also received Second Place in the Public Library National Design Competition, 1991. His current research targets affordable manufactured housing, urban design, sustainable development and ecological design.
 

Joseph Grindstaff

Mr. Grindstaff is Director of the California Bay-Delta Authority, where he leads efforts for a Program review, assessment and 10-year action plan called for in the Governor’s May 2005 budget revision.  His prior positions included Chief Deputy Director of the California Department of Water Resources, and General Manager of the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, a regional water agency having responsibility for over 2,650 square miles that includes parts of San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, and Orange counties, and is home to more than 5 million people. Grindstaff earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brigham Young University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Phoenix.
 

Hans Johnson

Mr. Johnson is a Research Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. He was a Senior Demographer for the California Research Bureau from 1993 to 1995, and a Demographer for the California Department of Finance from 1988 to 1992. Mr. Johnson holds a M.A. in biostatistics and a Ph.D. in demography from UC Berkeley. His areas of expertise are immigration and migration, population issues and demographics, and housing.
 

Patrick Johnston

Mr. Johnston is a member of the Bay Delta Authority, which provides oversight for the Cal Fed water management program.  He served 10 years in the State Assembly and 10 years in the State Senate, representing portions of the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta and authored the Delta Protection Act in 1992. He currently teaches state policy and politics at the Goldman School of Public Policy.
 

John King

Mr. King is the Urban Design Writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, exploring how architecture and planning shape life today. He has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects, and received a president’s award in 2005 year from the California Preservation Foundation. He also is a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.
 

Matt Kondolf

Dr. Kondolf is a an Associate Professor of Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley, and the Chair of the Portuguese Studies Program. His research focuses on environmental river management,, including effects of mining and dams on river systems, riparian vegetation and channel form, geomorphic influences on habitat for salmon and trout, alternative flood management strategies, and assessment of ecological restoration. He is a member of the Environmental Advisory Board to General Strock, Chief of the US Army Corps of Engineers, a member of the National Research Council Committee on Hydrology, Ecology and Fishes of the Klamath River Basin, and formerly a member of the CALFED Ecosystem Restoration Science Board
 

Keith H. Lichten, P.E.

Mr. Lichten is a Senior Engineer with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, where he has been a leader in developing environmentally sound approaches to stormwater management in the San Francisco Bay region.  Mr. Lichten is a graduate of the masters environmental planning program in UC Berkeley’s landscape architecture department, and received his undergraduate degree in civil and environmental engineering at MIT.  He is a member of ASCE’s Urban Water Resources Research Council.
 

Louise Mozingo

Ms. Mozingo is an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning. Her research and creative work focuses on ecological design, landscape history, and social processes in public landscapes. Formerly, she was an associate and senior landscape architect for Sasaki Associates, and she received a MLA from UC Berkeley as well as joint BAs in Biology and Art History from the College of William and Mary.
 

Eric Parfrey

Mr. Parfrey is a Principal Planner in the Yolo County Planning, Resources and Public Works Department. Previously, he was chairman of the Sierra Club’s Mother Lode chapter.
 

Tom Philp

Mr. Philp is an associate editor of The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board, and recently won the prestigious 2005 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing about the restoration of Yosemite National Park’s Hetch Hetchy Valley. He writes editorials, columns and Sunday Forum section articles about regional planning, water use issues, agriculture, forestry, energy, health care and telecommunications. In 2004 his editorial series on questionable spending inside California water districts won the Scripps Howard Foundation’s Walker Stone award, the Sigma Delta Chi Award, and the National Headliner Award for editorial writing.
 

Pete Rhoads

Mr. Rhoads served as the Principal Bay-Delta Resource Specialist with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Sacramento office, 1995-2001.   For the previous 22 years he was with the South Florida Water Management District, as a biologist, Director of Resource Planning, Director of Everglades Restoration, and Director Ecosystem Restoration.  Early in his career, he served as Director of Environmental Planning for the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council during the planning for Orlando’s Disneyworld.
 

Christine Rosen

Dr. Rosen is an Associate Professor in the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, where she teaches business history and corporate environmental strategy and management.  She wrote a book on the rebuilding of cities after great fires, “The Limits of Power: Great Fires and The Process of City Growth in America (1986).  Currently, her research focuses on business and the environment.  She is writing a book on the history of the American response to industrial pollution between 1840 and 1930.  She also writes on the latest developments in green product design and environmental supply chain management in the computer industry.
 

Raymond Seed

Dr. Seed is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. His research focuses the performance of dams and waste fills, and on the interaction between soil and structures. According to Seed, if a catastrophic earthquake causes numerous levee failures the Delta, two-thirds of California’s (scarce) fresh water supply for 18 million people — mostly in southern California — would be threatened. “Outages in water delivery could persist for well over a year — up to several years for some scenarios — and emergency water supplies south of the Delta provide less than a year’s worth of reserves.”
 

J. William Thompson, FASLA

Mr. Thompson is the editor of Landscape Architecture magazine, and has been with the magazine since 1988. He is co-author of Sustainable Landscape Construction, and in 2001 he received the Bradford Williams Award for writing about landscape architecture. An advocate of what he calls “Old Urbanism,” he lives in downtown Washington, DC.
 

Robert Twiss

Mr. Twiss is a Professor Emeritus of Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley. He is a member of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board, and is Founder and President of Geostage Inc., which develops and deploys software and services in web-based geographic information systems. He was: Chairman of the Governing Board of the California/Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (1980-83); a Faculty Principal Investigator for the Research Program in Environmental Planning and Geographic Information Systems (REGIS), which developed the world’s first web-based GIS in 1993 and placed it in the public domain; Chair of the Faculty of the College of Environmental Design; and initiator of the Ph.D. program in Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley.
 

Kathleen Van Velsor

Ms. Van Velsor is a Senior Environmental Planner and current Project Manager for water and land use studies at the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). She holds a MCP from UC Berkeley’s City & Regional Planning program, with an emphasis in environmental/land use planning and coastal resource management.  The recent chair of an Urban Water Management Planning Task Force in the City of Benicia, she has also participated as an Extended Review Forum Member in the California State Water Plan development process. While at ABAG, Ms. Van Velsor has worked on integrated state-wide water planning and has advanced a comprehensive watershed regional planning perspective as well as delta levee integrity programs aimed at protecting urban infrastructure and the environment.
 

Thomas W. Waters, PE, SES

Mr. Waters is Chief of Planning and Policy Division, Directorate of Civil Works at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Washington, DC. He formulates and coordinates Army Civil Works policy with Federal agencies and OMB; represents the Corps on Federal Advisory Committees. He is the Chief of the Mississippi Valley Division Regional Integration Team and Chief of the Planning Community of Practice. In 2004, Mr. Waters was Director of Programs for the Project & Contracting Office implementing organization for the reconstruction of Iraq.  Previously, he was Director of Programs at the Corps North Atlantic Division in New York. Tom is a registered Professional Engineer in Georgia and Pennsylvania, and holds a Masters Degree from Boston University.
 

Michael Webb

Mr. Webb is a Legislative Advocate for governmental affairs for the California Building Industry Association.  As a homebuilding industry lobbyist, Webb works mainly at the state Capitol in Sacramento seeking reforms and public policies that will improve California’s serious housing supply and affordability problems.  Webb is an attorney and has lobbied in Sacramento for seven years.
 

Carol Whiteside

Ms. Whiteside is the President and founder of the Great Valley Center, which promotes the economic, social and environmental well-being of California’s Central Valley. Whiteside served as the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for Governor Pete Wilson on issues of land use, finance and restructuring and economic development. She was Assistant Secretary at the California Resources Agency and specialized in resource conservation, land use and growth management issues. Whiteside also served on the Modesto City Schools’ Board of Education, the Modesto City Council, and was elected Mayor in 1987. Whiteside is a graduate of the University of California at Davis
 

Jane Wolff

Ms. Wolff is the author of Delta Primer:  a field guide to the California Delta.  She is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design at Washington University in Saint Louis, and this spring she is the Beatrix Farrand Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at Berkeley.
 

Tom Zuckerman

Mr. Zuckerman has represented Delta agricultural interests for 39 years, mainly as co-counsel for the Central Delta Water Agency.  He has a broad background in agricultural, environmental and recreational issues involving the Delta.